Heat treatment of milk aims to inhibit the growth of microbes, extend the shelf-life of products and improve the quality of the products. Heat treatment also leads to denaturation of whey protein and the formation of whey protein-casein polymer, which has negative effects on milk product. Hence the milk heat treatment conditions should be controlled in milk processing. In this study, the denaturation degree of whey protein and the combination degree of whey protein and casein when undergoing heat treatment were also determined by using the Native-PAGE and SDS-PAGE analysis. The results showed that the denaturation degree of whey protein and the combination degree of whey protein with casein extended with the increase of the heat-treated temperature and time. The effects of the heat-treated temperature and heat-treated time on the denaturation degree of whey protein and on the combination degree of whey protein and casein were well described using the quadratic regression equation. The analysis strategy used in this study reveals an intuitive and effective measure of the denaturation degree of whey protein, and the changes of milk protein under different heat treatment conditions efficiently and accurately in the dairy industry. It can be of great significance for dairy product proteins following processing treatments applied for dairy product manufacturing.
Keywords: casein; heat treatment; thermal denaturation; whey protein.